How To Fast-Track Brand Growth By Leveraging Unique Brand Assets

August 22nd, 2016 | Matthew Chung, Manager, Communications and Content

State-of-the-art behavioural science proves that uncovering, evolving and maintaining distinctive brand assets are one of the very best ways to grow brands.

Our brains are attracted to patterns, want to conserve energy, and are wired to hunt and gather. The new savannas are the shopping aisles, digital world, and e-commerce marketplaces. The winning brands are top-of-mind, easy to find and easy to buy.

At a recent ACA Webinar, Shane Skillen, CEO, Hotspex and Jonathan La Greca, VP Strategic Growth and Brand Building at Hotspex, explained the science behind consumer decision-making and presented the opportunity for marketers to grow their brands through emotion.

Shane Skillen, CEO, Hotspex and Jonathan  La Greca, VP Strategic Growth and Brand Building, HotSpex

All human brains have two components, Skillen said. There’s the fast, emotional limbic system that makes decisions very quickly and wants to do things that feel good while avoiding things that feel bad (The Elephant, Skillen called it). And there’s the rational brain (The Rider) that grows over top of our emotional brains over time.

For marketers, this matters because The Elephant thinks about brands it already knows (and loves or dislikes), while The Rider tries to steer The Elephant to think about practical matters like value or the proximity of a store to their house.

Marketers that can hone in on the emotion-driven Elephant in the brain have a big opportunity, Skillen said.

“The Important thing in marketing is to understand what is going on with that Elephant,” he said. “Because that is where almost 50% of decisions originate from.

“There’s an element of emotionality in almost every category, so it’s easy for brands to build a competitive advantage using the power of emotion.”

The Elements Of Great Brand Building

A powerful way to tap into people’s emotions is through brand-building, Skillen said, which:

  • Starts with the right brand associations
  • Comes to life through remarkable ideas
  • Is relentlessly consistent across all touch points with distinctive brand assets

Expanding on the distinctive brand assets point, Skillen said “availability” is a key component to growing a brand. That means both physically available (as in, your product is on shelves at every convenience store) but also mentally available. Mental availability is achieved through distinctive brand assets which provide people with an emotional identifier that helps explain what they’re feeling.

Distinctive brand assets, Skillen noted, do two things – get attention and create breakthrough and recall; and reinforce brand associations. But they must be both distinctive and on brand to generate brand growth. If a brand moves too far into the new, it can create cognitive dissonance for consumers.

“Start to understand what your brand assets are so you can focus on them and leverage them” Skillen said. “Because if you do, the science says that your brand will grow.

“More people will want to buy your brand, they will want to pay more for it, they will be more loyal to it and they will want to advocate for it both online and offline.”

ACA members can view the HotSpex presentation in its entirety, including Shane and Jonathan’s 4-step Action Plan to creating and maintaining distinctive brand assets , by visiting the ACA Webinars archive. For more information, you can also email HotSpex –